This is your guide to individual trails in the Bent Creek area.
Blaze Color: Blue
USGS Map Number: 665
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Easy trail with a beautifully engineered creek crossing on the upper end. From Boyd Branch Road, the trail is graveled to the creek crossing, which also has a hard gravel bottom and large flat paving stones on either side. The rest of the trail is smooth and gently climbing through a young forest on an old road bed.
Blaze Color: Blue
Trails Illustrated Map Number: 26
USGS Map Number: 329
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Connects the Bent Creek Campground with Bent Creek Gap Road. A smooth, level old roadbed which follows Bent Creek part of the way. Interpretive signs. Mixed pine-hardwood forest. Nice bridge right before intersection with Bent Creek Gap Road.
Blaze Color: Orange
USGS Map Number: 664
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Starting at the Rice Pinnacle parking area to the Deer Lake Lodge site, the trail is paved, and crosses a long wooden bridge. Beyond that, it turns left and is a rolling trail; travels beneath some powerlines (and it was formerly called "powerline trail". Connects the Deer Lake Lodge site to Ledford Branch Road.
Blaze Color: Yellow
Trails Illustrated Map Number: 47
USGS Map Number: 335
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Blaze Color: Yellow
Trails Illustrated Map Number: 50
USGS Map Number: 337
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Blaze Color: Orange
USGS Map Number: 661
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Connects the Hardtimes parking area with the entry road near the Rice Pinnacle parking area and the Deer Lake Lodge trail.
Blaze Color: Orange
Trails Illustrated Map Number: 69
USGS Map Number: 333
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This trail was recently completely re-graded. Travels along the shore of Lake Powhatan. Passes through the beach area and past the dam, then downstream along Bent Creek. There are a few footbridges and some wet places, but it's otherwise a fairly easy trail. Note: just past the beach area, the trail crosses Small Creek on a bridge and the trail is signed as Small Creek, not Homestead. The trails split shortly and Homestead goes left along the lake shore.
Blaze Color: Blue
Trails Illustrated Map Number: 71
USGS Map Number: 150
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Intersects many other trails. Mostly sidehill, level in places. Logged areas. Climbs from Ledford Branch Road to Ingles Field Gap.
USGS Map Number: 660
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Blaze Color: Yellow
Trails Illustrated Map Number: 82
USGS Map Number: 136
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Follows an ancient roadbed along Little Hickory Top's slopes. Seeps, muddy & wet sections, small streams.
Trails Illustrated Map Number: 87
USGS Map Number: 137A
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Steep near south end, smaller hills near north end. Varied forest - from dry pine/oak to moist hemlock/cove hardwoods. Rocky areas. Research plots. Grassy fields. Logged areas. Stream crossings.
Blaze Color: White
Trails Illustrated Map Number: 91
Blaze Color: Blue
Trails Illustrated Map Number: 94
USGS Map Number: 135
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Wide gravel road near bottom, wide trail near top. Old guardrails. Open areas with lots of poison ivy and thorns.
Trails Illustrated Map Number: 105
USGS Map Number: 336
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Blaze Color: White
Trails Illustrated Map Number: 115
USGS Map Number: 345
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Shares a path with the Mountains to Sea Trail from NC 191 near Bent Creek and Asheville to the Mount Pisgah parking area.
Blaze Color: Yellow
Trails Illustrated Map Number: 116
USGS Map Number: 145
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Most of this trail was turned into a road during 2005. Although the Forest Service officially calls the trail the same length it used to be, I do not consider a gravel road open to vehicles a "trail". From Ledford Gap to Boyd Branch Road, it is a gravel road and will be permanently maintained that way. From Boyd Branch Road to Ingles Field Gap, it is currently a gravel road but will be allowed to revert to a "trail" over time. This may take a long time, and for now - it's not a trail. The actual trail remains from Little Hickory Top down to Laurel Branch Road and this part is bumpy with lots of rocks and roots in spots.
USGS Map Number: 145
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From Laurel Branch Road and Lower Sidehill trail, this is downhill to Bent Creek Gap Road. A short trail with a nice hemlock grove.
Blaze Color: Red
Trails Illustrated Map Number: 118
USGS Map Number: 339
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Blaze Color: Red
Trails Illustrated Map Number: 116
USGS Map Number: 334
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Follows a small creek through young, mixed forests with plenty of the usual rhododendron and mountain laurel. Has recently been re-graded with some new bridges installed. Pleasant walk.
Blaze Color: Blue
Blaze Color: Yellow
USGS Map Number: 666
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Travels through the relatively flat stream bottom at the base of the mountains. Near the western end of this trail, you can see the hills rising out of the valley, and you'll start climb them before you reach Ledford Branch Road. Lots of ground pine, mountain laurel tunnels, and fern-filled woods; nice scenery. Several large mud holes and small stream crossings were replaced with sturdy wooden bridges on June 2, 2007 - National Trails Day. Popular, pleasant trail.
